While Samsung is seeking to overturn a preliminary injunction that prohibits it from shipping its hotly anticipated Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Europe, a court in The Hague decided not to impose an immediate sales ban in the Netherlands until it reaches a decision on 15 September.
In an unprecedented intellectual property battle, Apple …

COMMENTS

... Or alternatively

Just buy the cheap and far superior Asus Transformer...

Honestly, I really can't see the fuss over the tab, it's actually a very average tablet. If you want somethimg better than an iPad, more functional than an iPad, more open than an iPad, then you can pick up a 16GB Asus Transformer with dock for £399 these days, with all the functionality you could want (Honeycomb 3.2, USB slots, SD, MicroSD slots, HDMI out, Bluetooth, GPS etc etc.)

If you want something better...

The TF isn't superior - it's different

The problem is that the Asus TF isn't a superior tablet to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 - I know this for a fact because I own both.

The TF is an excellent device it its own right, but I see it as more of a hybrid tablet/netbook. If that's what you want, then the TF is the device to buy.

However, from a pure tablet perspective, I do find the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to be a superior device - especially with Touchwiz - Heresy I know, but it does seem to me that Touchwiz in this incarnation provides for a much nicer user experience than vanilla Honeycomb, so much so that the GT with Touchwiz and Android 3.1 seems much slicker than the TF with Android 3.2.

I still love my TF, but it doesn't get anywhere near as much use now that I have the GT.

Apple running scared.

That is the key point about these new non-Apple tablets. They address many of the crticisms and limitations of Apple products. These new Android tablets are much more capable of displacing a netbook.

It doesn't matter if a particular product is something that you happen to like. The fact that the local thug can bully it out of the market is still a problem. That same thug might be able to bully your favorite product out of the market.

A suitably modified version of Genesis

Look and feel

More litigious bullsh*t from two companies that are not exactly starved of cash. Agreed Apple fire the fist shot here, but the loser in these "trade wars" are the consumers..

I concede that Samsung's design leans heavily on the Apple fondleslab's design, but it's certainly not a "clone" They look the same from far, but are far from the same.

IMO I thjink this also goes beyond the sheer look of the devices themselves, to me Samsung's packaging has that Cupertino look and feel about it. Perhaps that was the straw that broke the camel's back?

Hopefully they can settle their differences and the consumer can be the winner here.

Heh

There is no mention of packaging here, because it can be changed at the drop of a hat. I wonder what design students study these days. Gasp, could it possibly be that they study similar design elements (like rounded corners and *shock* accent trim)? Why, the scandal! Apple has a case only if they can prove that there is no other reason to use common design elements than "slavishly copying". Too generic.

Actually sales are not banned

As a matter of fact only Samsung are banned from importing and selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1. It is perfectly legal for retailers to simply source and import the tablets on their own from outside the EU and sell them / promote them to their heart's content. Apple would need to seek an injunction against each such importer / retailer directly to stop it.

As a result of this Samsung have received masses of free publicity, apple have been made to look like a bunch of bullies and when this nonsense gets overturned in a months time they will also face a massive bill from Samsung for loss of earnings.

Apple flush with money....?

Yes, sort of. But I dont think that is the full story by a long shot.

Apple basically bet their existance on iPhone and iPad latterly. In order to fund said they have shaved the majority of their other lines into wintel boxes with out the Win part. Should I wish to, and Hell will freeze over first, I can make of a Dell a Mac computer with relatively little a: money and b: time. Certainly cheaper than I can buy the same box from Apple. The only thing thats keeping their full size business afloat is prettiness & litigation & ridiculous prices.

In the tablet and phone arena, they still lag behind in everything bar UX. When the apple bubble bursts (which it will, all bubbles do) where is their differentiation? They arent very secure, the walled garden is Jobs' answer to that. Theyre about as innovative as banana & custard. So thats advantage RIM/Symbian and Nokia & Samsung respectively.

They wont apparently make a QWERTY phone, which shuts them out of that market, in fact it shuts them out of two.. The E71 and BB market and the slide QWERTY market - E7 and others.

There is a limit to what can be achieved when your entire framework is fundamentally and artificially limited as Apples is.

Given that this is the case, and that Apple probably know this already, it is imperative for them to go all out to get everything they can before their products.. iPhone and iPad are yesterdays news, because theyve literally got NOTHING ELSE to work with.

Yes Apple are successful but is it true success or are they doing nothing more than financial trickery? After all, up to 2008 it was possible for a bank, perfectly legally to post their biggest profit the day they went bankrupt. Apple could end up in the position of being the worlds biggest one hit wonder since history began - and the tablet and touchscreen phone industry an evolutionary dead end.

Pedalling overpriced desktops and laptops with no more product differentiation than a different OS just isnt glamorous, or more importantly a high margin business.

Maybe

Indeed they may well fall by the wayside but one must remember that:

1. The ipod was king for a very long time and has really been replaced by touch and/or iphone

2. iTunes still rules until someone can come up with a cohesive multimedia library that is universally accessible and has similar depth of content. Android marketplace shit fight doesn't do it - in this respect the walled garden approach has kept malware largely at bay (for better or for worse).

3. They breathed new life into the tablet format. One that went nowhere fast previously for whatever reasons.

4. Nobody else seemed to want to make iMac format computers and yet they largely make sense - why have the box on the floor if you don't need it, it just looks scruffy? (Note I said "if you don't need it" so liquid cooled gaming rig owners need not vent their spleen). I used to build my own machines under the illusion of updatability but Intel's constant changing of chipsets and sockets puts pay to that. Graphics card and hard drive/ssd remain the few realistic changes you can make. Memory is upgradable on iMacs too.

Now all this does come at a price - choice and control. You cannot buy a tower Mac unless you want to remortgage. You do what you want with most of your idevices unless you jailbreak them. iPads don't come with a card reader or USB slot - major failings in my opinion but that's not Job's business model.

Despite owning various Apple products I'd like to seem them at least take a major stumble because with their success has come great hubris and arrogance towards their customer base. Much like it did the last time. This needs correcting.

However all this just goes to show that bubbles can go on for a lot longer than you think. I don't think their is any financial trickery involved. The billions are there in cash for all to see. They are successful because they choose who sells their products and at what price.